Smartphone gloves

ABSTRACT

The present invention discloses a glove that allows operating an electronic device having a touch interface while wearing the glove. The glove comprises a glove body and digits coupled to the glove body. At least one of the digits comprises a removably coupled sleeve or cap adapted to cover the tip of thumb and/or finger. Removing of the sleeve exposes the thumb or fingertip for operating the touch interface of electronic device. The invention is advantageous allowing use of naked finger and/or thumb tips while wearing the glove for interacting with touch interface or registering thumb or fingerprints for biometric identification.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

Not applicable.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not applicable.

NAMES OF THE PARTIES TO A JOINT RESEARCH AGREEMENT

Not applicable.

INCORPORATION-BY-REFERENCE OF MATERIALS SUBMITTED ON A COMPACT DISC

Not applicable.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the gloves and in particular, to gloves that allows using a handheld electronic device having a touch interface while wearing the gloves.

2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98

Staying warm through winter is key, but for tech junkies, keeping connected to your favorite devices is even more important. While texting addicts once had to remove their gloves and face the season's bitter chill just to send a message, some phones allow you to text through cloth. However, if your phone doesn't have this feature, there are now a plethora of winter gloves that will interact just fine with a touchscreen. Whether one is professional snowboarder or are seeking the finest in snow-season fashion, one will probably find something to like in breakdown of the best tech-friendly gloves.

Capacitive touch screen gloves that let one use his or her smartphone while protecting hands from the icy cold are surely the big sellers. Most touchscreens needs user's actual warm finger skin to operate properly which usually means removing the glove, sticking it in a pocket or hanging it out of user's mouth, while the user tap away on smartphone or tablet in the freezing cold with numb fingers. This leads to wet or lost gloves plus a good chance of frostbite. Most smartphones uses a capacitive touchscreen rather than the older resistive touchscreens. Wherein, resistive touch interfaces relied on mere pressure to work, the capacitive have an electrical field and so require contact with something that can conduct electricity—typically finger or a stylus. When one wears standard gloves, electrical conductivity is lost, so the charge cannot pass from user's finger through the glove and register on the screen.

Many prior arts have focused on developing conductive gloves, for example, a PCT appl. no. PCT/KR2012/005975 discloses a glove for a smartphone, which enables user to operate a smartphone having a capacitive touch screen mounted thereon even while the user is wearing the glove. Another granted U.S. Pat. No. 8,605,049 discloses gloves worn by a user while manipulating an electronic device equipped with a capacitive touchscreen. The gloves allow the wearer to manipulate the capacitive touchscreen device without removing the gloves, which is very advantageous in cold environments.

Other prior arts, US 20140194166 A1, US 20140002408 A1 disclose gloves that include additional facilities like transceiver module, a microphone and a speaker for audio/video communications and system and methods for expanding range of environments and applications in which a mobile electronic device having a touch screen can be efficiently utilized.

Capacitive sensor gloves are disclosed in a published U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/250,815, and apparatuses and methods of glove touch detection are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/895,110. Various other prior arts also disclosed different system and apparatus to use capacitive touchscreen of smartphone while gloves are on.

Although prior art is rich in gloves that permit operating the touch interface of electronic devices while wearing the gloves, to best of our knowledge, no prior art discuss a glove that allow a user to register their fingerprints or thumbprint without removing the gloves. Furthermore, the gloves should be easy to wear and remove or replace without creating any hassle for the user.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the foregoing disadvantages inherent in the known types of gloves present in the prior art, the present invention provides new and improved gloves designed to be compatible for use with mobile or tablets in extreme weather conditions. As such, the general purpose of the present invention, which will be described subsequently in greater detail, is to provide a new and improved gloves which has all the advantages of the prior art and none of the disadvantages.

An object of the invention is to provide gloves that allow manipulating an electronic device having a touch interface while wearing the gloves.

It is another object of the present invention is that the gloves permit improved interaction with the touch interface without removing the gloves.

An additional objective of present invention is that the gloves allow a user to register their fingerprint or thumbprint without removing the gloves.

Another object of the present invention is that the glove allows typing and navigation easier.

It is also an object of the present invention to provide gloves that provide warm and comfort to the user hand in cold climate.

Further, it is an object of the present invention that the gloves are easy to wear and remove, and are economic to manufacture.

There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated.

Numerous objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description of presently preferred, but nonetheless illustrative, embodiments of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of descriptions and should not be regarded as limiting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

To further clarify various aspects of some example embodiments of the present invention, a more particular description of the invention will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof, which are illustrated in the appended drawing. It is appreciated that the drawing depicts only illustrated embodiments of the invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope. The invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. 1 is the Palm face view of glove showing the glove body and thumb cap attached to the body using anchor.

FIG. 2 shows the glove of FIG. 1 with the thumb cap pulled against an elastic strap.

FIG. 3 shows the glove of FIG. 1 with the thumb cap hanging from the elastic strap.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The embodiments of the present disclosure described below are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the precise forms disclosed in the following detailed description. Rather, the embodiments are chosen and described so that others skilled in the art may appreciate and understand the principles and practices of the present disclosure.

The following embodiments and the accompanying drawings, which are incorporated into and form part of this disclosure, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, certain illustrative aspects of the invention are described herein in connection with the following description and the annexed drawings. These aspects are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of the invention can be employed and the subject invention is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents. Other advantages and novel features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the drawings.

In some preferred embodiments, the present invention provides gloves permitting use of electronic devices having a touch interface while wearing the gloves. The invention is particularly advantageous for places having extreme weather conditions and gloves provide warm and comfort. Removing of the gloves in such cold climate is generally undesirable and uncomfortable.

This section summarizes some aspects of the present disclosure and briefly introduces some preferred embodiments. Simplifications or omissions in this section as well as in the abstract or the title of this description may be made to avoid obscuring the purpose of this section, the abstract and the title. Such simplifications or omissions are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure nor imply any limitations.

Present invention discloses a method for providing a user glove for use with a mobile electronic device having a touch interface. The present invention in a preferred embodiment thereof, discloses a glove that allows a wearer to interact with touch interface of a device without removing the glove. Now, referring to the drawing, the FIG. 1 shows the palm face of the glove. The glove includes a traditional glove body having an opening to receive hand of a user and the glove body configured to cover the palm and rear of the hand. To the glove body are attached four finger digits and one thumb digit adapted to receive the fingers and thumb of the hand respectively. Further shown in the FIG. 1 is a sleeve 2 also referred herein as cap covering the thumb tip, and removably coupled to the glove body through an anchor 3. The anchor portion is rigid and allows removing and wearing the sleeve, and is fixed to the glove body through at least one elastic cord. FIG. 2 shows the sleeve pulled against the elastic cord 4, the user could pull the sleeve with hands, or teeth exposing the thumb tip. The sleeve could then be released as shown in FIG. 3, wherein the sleeve hangs from the elastic cord.

The exposed thumb tip could be used to interact with the touch interface for operating an electronic device. The exposed thumb provides better interaction with touch interface unlike the conductive gloves of prior art. The exposed thumb tip permits accurate typing and navigation in smart phone devices and further provides registering thumb impression for biometric identification. However, it is obvious that the sleeve could be provided for any finger, or for thumb and finger. Preferably, the sleeves are provided in thumb and index finger digits of the glove as there are most commonly used in manipulation touch interfaces.

The sleeves could be replaced by again pulling the sleeve against the elastic cord and juxtaposing the opening of sleeve against the thumb tip, the elasticity of the cord pulls and retains the sleeve over the thumb tip. Further additional force could be applied by hand to firmly couple the sleeve to the glove body for preventing any entry of air.

Thus, the glove of present invention may allow user to interact with a touch sensitive device partially without the need to remove gloves completely. Taking off and putting on of gloves is time consuming and annoying. For time-critical responses, a user wearing gloves can miss important information: for example, responding to an incoming phone call. The present invention can be used to allow time critical events to be met. For example, a user can respond to an incoming phone call on a touch screen of a mobile device without removing their gloves completely to do so. The use of convention conductive gloves may sometimes result in frequent false detections and has low accuracy.

In its preferred embodiment, the purpose of the present invention is to allow quick access to smartphones when users need to wear gloves, by allowing quick thumb and finger access for touch ID authentication, navigation and typing, thus solving the need of removing gloves to access and use smartphone when user is wearing gloves. When user needs to access their smartphone for authentication, texting or navigating, they need to simply slip off the thumb cap of the glove. The thumb cap of glove remains intact with the rest of the glove by elastic straps that can be easily and quickly retracted back after the use of smartphone. The present invention solves the problem of allowing biometric thumbprint authentication which is becoming standard in new smartphones.

It is to be understood that the present invention encompasses various alternatives and design adaptations for example, the detachable sleeve could be provided for any finger and thumb. Further, the elastic cord could be any elastic cord obvious to a skilled person and more than one elastic cord could be used. The size of glove could be varied as per the need of the user and preferably, the glove could be produced in three sizes i.e. small, medium, and large. Furthermore, the glove may include various forms of indicia and color.

Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that any arrangement, which is calculated to achieve the same purpose, may be substituted for the specific embodiment shown. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the present invention.

Although the invention has been explained in relation to its preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that many other possible modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. 

I claim:
 1. A smartphone glove for use with a mobile electronic device having a capacitive touch screen, wherein the glove allows a wearer to interact with capacitive touch screen of a device without removing the glove.
 2. The smartphone glove claimed in claim 1, wherein the glove includes a traditional glove body configured to cover the palm and back of the hand and finger & thumb sheaths to cover the fingers and thumb.
 3. The smartphone glove claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one of the finger or thumb sheaths is provided with detachable tip opening to allow the tip of finger or thumb to touch the smartphone of the screen in real and develop a conductive transmission for operating the smartphone with ease during extreme weather conditions.
 4. The smartphone glove claimed in claim 1, wherein the gloves allow quick access to smartphones when users need to wear gloves, by allowing quick thumb and finger access for touch ID authentication, navigation and typing.
 5. The smartphone claimed in claim 1, wherein the thumb part of the glove remains intact with the rest of the glove by elastic straps that can be easily and quickly retracted back after the use of smartphone. 